Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

We evidently think along the same lines!

[Atlantic 3279]

In an available half hour this afternoon I seized the chance to apply some transfers to the un-finished 6-plank open wagon and ballast brake that I was building before the A5 monopolised the work bench. After some study of the HMRS sheet I found most of the necessary items, although I'm short of a suitable, known number and allocation for the ballast brake. The info with the kit refers only to 42E and the only suitable photograph in "Super Tatlow" shows this van with South District allocation. I don't think that would be very appropriate for "somewhere in Lincolnshire" and although Tatlow lists another known number for this type of van, the allocation isn't revealed. The "Illustrations of GN wagon stock" book doesn't help further. The off-the-peg districts on the HMRS sheet include Leeds, West Riding, and Norwich, which don't appeal to me either. "Southern Area" appears as a ready-made-up option, but I'm not sure that anything as general as a whole-of-area allocation is right for a ballast brake. Gateshead appears, but doesn't help me much. Peterborough and Boston appear as separate names in the correct size of lettering too, and as Peterborough simply won't fit on the van in the right place I'm currently leaning towards just the word Boston and possibly the other number from Tatlow or a conjectural number. Lincoln, if offered, might have appealed too, although I have no idea of whether Lincoln or Boston actually had an allocation including a ballast brake of this, or any other sort. Of course, if nobody else knows then nobody will be able to tell me that I've got it wrong!

I think the final decision can safely be delayed anyway. When the van is actually finished I'll use it for the time being with the two cheekily adapted ballast wagons of "other origin" in this view, whose weathering seems to have all-but obliterated any blueness under a layer of grey dust. The 6-plank and A5 won't be part of the group obviously...

[Atlantic 3279]

Copied in from elsewhere:

John Coffin / Paul Craig "There is a photo in the original Tatlow showing number 42E as an LNER ballast brake, so I would suggest that if you numbered your one for grantham, the number might well be between 40 and 50 E.
What we all know is that once you have painted, varnished and posted the finished vehicle, either no one will notice, or some one will come along to prove you wrong.
The Leeds one was 20E, whilst I have another photo of 45E. I would be pretty sure therefore that we have a number series from at least 20-50E. Remember they were "registered" to specific
areas, ie Leeds, Grantham etc.
HTH
Paul"

Thank you. Those thoughts are both very welcome, and useful. My impression is that allocation was to the slightly more specific "Districts" rather than to "Areas". Is Grantham a "known" allocation for some of the ballast brakes? What about Lincoln, or my tentative proposal above of Boston too, where there was of course an engineer's department "presence" in the form of the sleeper works? I know that there was an LNER Lincoln District for certain purposes, as I have a scanned copy of an album presented to the Lincoln District Superintendent on his retirement in 1932.

[john coffin]

I wouldn't disagree about them being sent to specific regions, Greame,
I will see if I can find the references to regions in my filing system.

Paul

[Horsetan]

DSCN0255s.jpgDSCN0257s.jpg...

That looks almost as if you had created a resin body.....

[Atlantic 3279]

DSCN0255s.jpgDSCN0257s.jpg...

That looks almost as if you had created a resin body.....

Would that be a positive point about the metal body in primer?

[Atlantic 3279]

I wouldn't disagree about them being sent to specific regions, Greame,
I will see if I can find the references to regions in my filing system.

Paul

I was only able to infer that from sight of a very limited number of pictures of the vans, which seem to have specific "district" names painted on them.
Earlier GN period pictures on other engineer's vehicles also seem to include allocations to "Loop District". I've never known whether that indicated the Lincs loop or the Hertford loop, nor to I know if such a district still existed in the 1930s LNER structure.

[Horsetan]

DSCN0255s.jpgDSCN0257s.jpg...

That looks almost as if you had created a resin body.....

Would that be a positive point about the metal body in primer?

Yes, and also might give you some evil ideas about future resin bodies. Are you still open to resin moulding work, as I have been playing about with an idea for a while and wondered if you might be up for an experiment at some point this year......

[Atlantic 3279]

I probably have more than enough "listed intentions" of my own, but there'd be no harm in running the idea past me. At worst I could only decline.

[Atlantic 3279]

Regarding the ballast brake I do now at least have some nice little etched works plates for the solebars, courtesy of Paul, and I know what the pattern of bolt heads missing from the middle section of the solebar should look like on one side at least. As for the arrangement on the other side, well, er, not a clue I'm afraid!

[Atlantic 3279]

You might almost be forgiven for thinking that the object below is a novelty moustache with a broken nose-clip, from a Christmas cracker...

But no, I've gone back to the A5. As well as filling up some more of the imperfections that were revealed by the primer and scraping down a few similarly revealed blobs (transparent glue in a couple of cases, used by the original builder and invisible until painted), I was spurred into action by a a picture that John Smart kindly showed me. That revealed quite a noticeable protector plate behind the dangling rear coupling on at least one of the locos, hence I've been tempted to add such a plate and therefore also build a representation of the duly protected water scoop that I said I wouldn't bother with!

I've used four layers of 1mm black plasticard. The one-piece, strong set of rear guard irons I devised, and the body-chassis fixing screw they had to avoid were both in the way, otherwise the mounting for the bi-directional scoop would have been in the logical central position looking like a basic representation of the rising chute. The offset top mounting block will be well hidden anyway, stuck between the frames and masked by the trailing wheels. As you'll see, I've also drilled through the rear-facing part of the scoop in order to give access for a screwdriver to that body-chassis screw.
With the scoop tried in place dry, there's still just enough room for the lateral swing of the rear truck and the action of its spring.

[Atlantic 3279]

My attempts to add some images last night seem to have failed. Perhaps I pressed the wrong button...

Anyway, two days ago I added the water scoop and protector plate to the A5, rubbed down the second round of filling that I'd done on the tank and bunker edges, scraped off and re-smoothed any lumps where the paint had revealed residues of clear glue used in one or two places by the original builder, carried out any final minor filling tasks, and belatedly made and added a fire-iron stand having noticed such an item in better photographs of the real locos.

Yesterday, I carefully added the many PVA dots to represent bolt or rivet heads on the frames, plus the two knobs on the front valve chest cover, then when the PVA was dry gave the body another spray coat of primer. The rather stark lighting in the picture below was part of my crude attempt to show up the rivets, in a hurry...

When weather permits, a spray coat of satin black can follow.

[Horsetan]

I probably have more than enough "listed intentions" of my own, but there'd be no harm in running the idea past me. At worst I could only decline.

I'd better send you a PM, in that case

[Atlantic 3279]

I've been neglecting things somewhat here, haven't I?

Well, the A5 has been in black finish for quite some time but still awaits lining. I decided back in gloomy January to wait until there was good daylight on a regular basis before attempting the lining. In the meantime, I've been plodding away with the basics of the construction of another loco and tender, doing the tender first actually and, according no doubt to some, going about the whole job in a needlessly difficult and complicated way! As I have recently intimated in a separate thread relating to Mitsumi motors, matters haven't been helped by the belated realisation that two "identical" motors which needed to produce matched performances were not in fact equally capable, but I've now sorted that out. I have also proven that I can get the loco motor in and out of the small boiler when the boiler is fixed to the basic running plate and cab, even though the motor is perhaps set unusually well-forward on the chassis. Confidence that the project will actually work out is now consequently high, so I'm prepared to reveal what is afoot.

In a nutshell, I'm working towards a scratchbuilt MS&LR / GCR class 2/2A loco in later condition as LNER class D7, with the appropriate 3080 gallon version of the family of MS&LR / GCR tenders. I'm trying to build as much as possible of this in suitable separable modules so that it will be possible to consider later production of moulds and resin castings, although I'm not saying at this stage whether or not I will pursue that option, nor when I might make a decision.

The tender has been created by cutting and reassembling, to reduced dimensions, the body moulding for a commercial version of the 4000 gallon Robinson tender, adding loads of archer rivet transfers, mounting this on a home-made soleplate and fitting altered frames with revised axlebox and spring hanger details. I initially had the assembly on a simple free-running internal underframe, but then in order to help to compensate for a potentially very light locomotive with little adhesion I built a new chassis unit for the tender including a low-slung double-ended Mitsumi motor (with gearing at both ends driving the outer wheelsets of the tender) and filled the tender body with chunks of lead.

The loco so far is virtually all plasticard and plastic strip, including the custom made bogie and the frames of the four-coupled drive unit, although all available space between those frames is filled with lead and the axles run in brass bearings. There's also a temporary ballast box in the rear of the firebox space, protruding into the cab. Permanent balast in the firebox and inside the rear splashers will be added much later. I know very well that the current bogie wheels have too many spokes do not have the finest profile or appearance, but they can be changed later. I wanted to avoid any balance problems with the potentially nose-heavy loco, I didn't want any trouble with the large bogie wheels fouling the underside of the running plate, and I wanted to give the four coupled wheels the freedom to stay on the rails picking up current and driving the loco on uneven track, but I've stopped short of full compensation with hornblocks as that can be a mixed blessing in OO gauge where fine-profile wheels and "universal" track with large crossing gaps sometimes meet up. I've therefore arranged for the body to be able to tilt back and forth slightly on the four-coupled drive unit (so long as nobody fully tightens up the carefully located mounting screws) while the bogie carries the weight of the front of the loco at a height that follows any undulations in the track, thus keeping the bogie wheel tops clear of the running plate. The brass stretcher and plastic blocks that accommodate those screws had to be very carefully positioned so as not to foul the coupling rods.

In the final pictures I had only recently built the smokebox base, gone round the boiler with a first application of filler and smoothed that back to roughly the final shape, hence the patchy appearance...

As it turns out, the rather lightweight loco pulls surprisingly well even without assistance from the driven tender, although further testing may show some shortcomings. Even if the tender drive unit proves un-necessary for this particular loco I have another project in mind for which it may be very valuable, and no matter what the outcome it has been an interesting challenge to build with some useful new knowledge acquired.

[Pebbles]

This looks very attractive; but without teaching my grandmother to suck eggs could I make suggestions. There is always a problem hiding the motor in small models without intruding into the cab. Whilst cutting into a plastic tube will almost always cause problems this may not be the case with a cast resin boiler. If the lower part of the boiler - the width of the motor - formed part of the chassis and saddle for the motor, accommodating the motor would be simplified. This approach has of coarse been used by both Bachmann and Hornby.
Sticking with your current arrangement, many years ago slot car tyres were available in a compact foam. If you could obtain something similar to use as a collar for the motor, it would act as both a motor locator and sound insulator.